Top Philosophic Quotes

Favorite Philosophic Quotes

1. "Then, in a further challenge to reality and because of the way she felt towards them, Chloe would (with the grin of a six-year-old child facing the power of its hostile impulses) tell her parents she could kill them by shutting her eyes and never thinking of them again - a plan which no doubt elicit a profoundly unphilosophical response from the parents."Author: Alain De Botton

2. "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer."Author: Albert Camus

3. "It is eminently reasonable that men should seek to associate with those who share their convictions and values. It is impossible to deal or even to communicate with men whose ideas are fundamentally opposed to one's own (and one should be free not to deal with them). All proper associations are formed or joined by individual choice and on conscious, intellectual grounds (philosophical, political, professional, etc.)—not by the physiological or geographical accident of birth, and not on the ground of tradition. When men are united by ideas, i.e., by explicit principles, there is no room for favors, whims, or arbitrary power: the principles serve as an objective criterion for determining actions and for judging men, whether leaders or members."Author: Ayn Rand

4. "'Truth Will Set U Free' is about honesty. My philosophic belief that ultimately being true to yourself is liberating, with every individual's inalienable right to be who they are without fear or recrimination."Author: Corey Hart

5. "On the philosophical level, both Buddhism and modern science share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, whether conceptualize as a transcendent being, as an eternal, unchanging principle such as soul, or as a fundamental substratum of reality. ... In the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be. ~ 14th Dalai Lama in his talk to the Society for Neuroscience in 2005 in Washington."Author: Dalai Lama XIV

6. "If philosophy had the power to establish incontrovertible truths, immune to doubt, and if philosophers were as a rule wholly disinterested practitioners of their art, then it might be possible to speak of progress in philosophy. In fact, however, the philosophical tendencies and presuppositions of any age are, to a very great degree, determined by the prevailing cultural mood or by the ideological premises generally approved of my the educated classes. As often as not, the history of philosophy has been a history of prejudices masquerading as principles, and so merely a history of fashion. It is as possible today to be an intellectually scrupulous Platonist as it was more than two thousand years ago; it is simply not in vogue."Author: David Bentley Hart

7. "To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian."Author: David Hume

8. "Reality [...] at every level from photons to philosophical fancies to the consciousness of living organisms was fluid [...]. To break apart and confine this reality into separate categories created by the mind was foolish and futile, much like trying to capture a ray of light inside a dark wooden box. This urge to categorize was the true fall of man [...] the infinite became finite, good opposed evil, thoughts hardened into beliefs, one's joys and discoveries became dreadful certainties, man became alienated from what he perceived as other ways and other things, and, ultimately, divided against himself, body and soul. [...] Always seeking meaning, always making their lives safe and comfortable, human beings do not truly live."Author: David Zindell

9. "In real life no argument has a really neat and conclusive ending, least of all a discussion ranging over vast and varied fields. The end of this one must be inconclusive for the deepest philosophical reasons, but it must also be so because human behaviour and artistic truth demand it. The two men in a pub, or on a seat in a garden - it is no longer quite clear where they are - become aware of the time, and they have to end abruptly on the sort of note real people always come back to: 'Oh well, I dunno."Author: Denis Diderot

10. "Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one – more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-three More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch-Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover."Author: Douglas Adams

11. "Social infancy, regarded the legends of their faith as a child reads a fairy tale, credulous of all that is supernatural in the agency--unconscious of all that may be philosophical in the moral. It is true, indeed, that dim"Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton

12. "Some of life's moments mark a break in consciousness; others give rise to streams of scintillating, philosophical ideas or astonishing works of art; still others, to important meeting or profound personal upheavals."Author: Elie Wiesel

13. "And I took a seat in the grandstand of philosophical detachment to fall asleep observing the cannibals do their death dance."Author: Eugene O'Neill

14. "Designing posters, for me, is not only a commercial pursuit but also a philosophical endeavor."Author: Fang Chen

15. "As we already pointed out, 'special' means 'restricted to Inertial Frames of Reference', i.e. this theory cannot describe the Universe from an arbitrary reference frame. This restricted scope is not to be ignored, though not overemphasized either. ...Ironically, and precisely because of the great success of this simple version of Relativity Theory, most of its detractors have chosen to ignore (out of ignorance or malice -- you judge case by case) its philosophical foundation and restriction to Inertial Frames, so as to declare it invalid."Author: Felix Alba Juez

16. "With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship"Author: Herman Melville

17. "The Faerie Queene was intended by its author to be a philosophical poem and was so regarded by his contemporaries and immediate successors, whose appreciation of it was so great."Author: Janet Spens

18. "Go buy milk,' Robert said at last.Dylan moved for Buggy's door.But if ou come around here with that old lady's money next time I might have to take it off you.'Dylan recognized this as a sort of philosophical using. He was grateful for the implied sense of pooled information. He and Robert could move forward together from this point into whatever was required."Author: Jonathan Lethem

19. "That fact that Athens could condemn its noblest citizen to death did more than make a profound impression on him. It was to shape the course of his entire philosophic endeavor."Author: Jostein Gaarder

20. "Knowing you don't have much time left changes things. You get kind of philosophical. And you figure things out-more like, they figure themselves out-and everything gets real clear."Author: Kami Garcia

21. "I always see that there's a - from a philosophical point of view - there's the appearance of things that everybody wants you to think is happening, then there's the reality underneath it."Author: Larry Bishop

22. "The unphilosophical majority among men are the ones most helplessly dependent on their era's dominant ideas."Author: Leonard Peikoff

23. "The prevailing taste of the public for anecdote has been censured and ridiculed by critics, who aspire to the character of superior wisdom: but if we consider it in a proper point of view, this taste is an incontestible proof of the good sense and profoundly philosophic temper of the present times. Of the numbers who study, or at least who read history, how few derive any advantage from their labors!"Author: Maria Edgeworth

24. "I notice you didn't include a blade with your new attire," Royce said. "Not even a little jeweled dagger.""Lords no." Albert looked appalled. "I don't fight.""I thought all nobles learned sword fighting." Royce looked to Hadrian."I thought so too.""Nobles with competent fathers perhaps. I spent my formative years at my aunt's at Huffington Manor. She held a daily salon, where a dozen noble ladies came to discuss all manner of philosophical topics, like how much they hated their husbands. I've never actually held a sword, but I can tie a mean corset and apply face paint like a gold-coin whore."Author: Michael J. Sullivan

25. "They connected on every level - mental, philosophical, emotional. But she couldn't have him, not all of him."Author: Nicole Mones

26. "It is a meaningful thing for a scientist of the stature of Ibn Sina, certainly one of the best scientific minds in the whole history of mankind, to often resort to prayer to seek God's help in solving his philosophical and scientific problems. And it is also perfectly understandable why the purification of the soul is considered an integral part of the methodology of knowledge."Author: Osman Bakar

27. "I don't like answering to other people's philosophies. I don't have any philosophy, I just believe in stuff. Either I believe in something or I don't. Like, I believe in the Rolling Stones but not in the Dave Clark Five. There's nothing philosophic about it. Whenever I'm linked with a movement, it pisses me off."Author: Patti Smith

28. "'Psycho' is fascinating philosophically, because the point of 'Psycho' is that everything that's bad happens because of love."Author: Penn Jillette

29. "I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American."Author: Pete Seeger

30. "I was unwilling to - without getting too philosophical about it - I was unwilling to structure my spirituality in the way that the church wanted me to structure it."Author: Peter Jurasik

31. "On a small scale, person-to-person, Jesus encountered the kinds of suffering common to all of us. And how did he respond? Avoiding philosophical theories and theological lessons, he reached out with healing and compassion. He forgave sin, healed the afflicted, cast out evil, and even overcame death."Author: Philip Yancey

32. "Man cannot be enlightened through any organization, creed, dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through understanding the contents of his own mind, through observation, not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection."Author: Radhanath Swami

33. "… in these new days and in these new pages a philosophical tradition of the spontaneity of speculation kind has been rekindled on the sacred isle of Éire, regardless of its creative custodian never having been taught how to freely speculate, how to profoundly question, and how to playfully define. Spontaneity of speculation being synonymous with the philosophical-poetic, the philosophical-poetic with the rural philosopher-poet, and by roundelay the rural philosopher-poet thee with the spontaneity of speculation be. And by the way of the rural what may we say? A philosopher-poet of illimitable space we say. Iohannes Scottus Ériugena the metaphor of old salutes you; salutes your lyrical ear and your skilful strumming of the rippling harp. (Source: Hearing in the Write, Canto 19, Ivy-muffled)"Author: Richard McSweeney

34. "Grover didn't say anything for awhile. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"Author: Rick Riordan

36. "For him morality was neither conformism nor philosophic wisdom, but living the infinite fullness of possibilities. He believed in morality's capacity for intensification, in stages of moral experience, and not merely, as most people do, in stages of moral understanding, as if it were something cut-and-dried for which people were just not pure enough. He believed in morality without believing in any specific moral system. Morality is generally understood to be a sort of police regulations for keeping life in order, and since life does not obey even these, they come to look as if they were really impossible to live up to and accordingly, in this sorry way, not really an ideal either. But morality must not be reduced to this level. Morality is imagination. This was what he wanted to make Agathe see. And his second point was: Imagination is not arbitrary. Once imagination is left to caprice, there is a price to pay."Author: Robert Musil

37. "We can either have a twenty-first-century conversation about morality and the human well-being - a conversation in which we avail ourselves of all scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse - or we can confine ourselves to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible."Author: Sam Harris

38. "If we were in a restaurant sometimes Orpheus would look sullen and wouldn't talk to me and I thought people felt sorry for me. I should have realized that women envied me. Their husbands talked too much.But I wanted to talk to him about my notions. I was working on a new philosophical system. It involved hats."Author: Sarah Ruhl

39. "There's a few things I want to ask him. Philosophical questions. Like, ‘How does it feel to be dangled out a window by a rope tied around your balls, motherfucker?"Author: Scott Lynch

40. "Modern science was born through the Scientific Revolution in the 11th/17th century at a time when, as we saw earlier, European philosophy had itself rebelled against revelation and the religious world view. The background of modern science is a particular philosophical outlook which sees the parameters of the physical world, that is, space, time, matter and energy to be realities that are independent of higher orders of being and cut off from the power of God, at least during the unfolding of the history of the cosmos. It views the physical world as being primarily the subject of mathematicization and quatification and, in a sense, absolutizes the mathematical study of nature relegating the non-quantifiable aspects of physical existence to irrelevance."Author: Seyyed Hossein Nasr

41. "If you put it as 'complex nervous systems' it sounds pretty deflationary. What's so special about a complex nervous system? But of course, that complex nervous system allows you to do calculus. It allows you to do astrophysics… to write poetry... to fall in love. Put under that description, when asked 'What's so special about humans...?', I'm at a loss to know how to answer that question. If you don't see why we'd be special… because we can do poetry [and] think philosophical thoughts [and] we can think about the morality of our behavior, I'm not sure what kind of answer could possibly satisfy you at that point....I could pose the same kinds of questions of you... So God says, 'You are guys are really, really special.' How does his saying it make us special? 'But you see, he gave us a soul.' How does our having a soul make us special? Whatever answer you give, you could always say… 'What's so special about that?"Author: Shelly Kagan

42. "I can't do it. I can't get into a philosophical debate with an archangel, knowing how ridiculous it is and how unprepared I am."Author: T.J. Klune

43. "It is a difficult matter to gain the affection of a cat. He is a philosophical, methodical animal, tenacious of his own habits, fond of order and neatness, and disinclined to extravagant sentiment. He will be your friend, if he finds you worthy of friendship, but not your slave."Author: Théophile Gautier

44. "Cesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessity"Author: Thornton Wilder

45. "So all I'm saying is, everything that seems important--our quarrels, or philosophical differences--in the end, it doesn't matter much. You know? In the end, what matters is what remains."Author: Thrity Umrigar

46. "In Ephesians 5, Paul shows us that even on earth Jesus did not use his power to oppress us but sacrificed everything to bring us into union with him. And this takes us beyond the philosophical to the personal and the practical. If God had the gospel of Jesus's salvation in mind when he established marriage, then marriage only 'works' to the degree that approximates the pattern of God's self-giving love in Christ."Author: Timothy Keller

47. "As Socrates so philosophically put it, since we don't know what death is, it is illogical to fear it."Author: Tom Stoppard

48. "A history of civilization shares the presumptuousness of every philosophical enterprise: it offers the ridiculous spectacle of a fragment expounding the whole. Like philosophy, such a venture has no rational excuse, and is at best but a brave stupidity; but let us hope that, like philosophy, it will always lure some rash spirits into its fatal depths."Author: Will Durant

49. "Even if the intelligent design of some structure has been established, it still is a separate question whether a wise, powerful, and beneficent God ought to have designed a complex, information-rich structure one way or another. For the sake of argument, let's grant that certain designed structures are not simply, as Gould put it, "odd" or "funny," but even cruel. What of it? Philosophical theology has abundant resources for dealing with the problem of evil, maintaining a God who is both omnipotent and benevolent in the face of evil."Author: William A. Dembski

50. "The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food."Author: William Winwood Reade